51 ideas
| 19693 | There is practical wisdom (for action), and theoretical wisdom (for deep understanding) [Aristotle, by Whitcomb] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle takes wisdom to come in two forms, the practical and the theoretical, the former of which is good judgement about how to act, and the latter of which is deep knowledge or understanding. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Dennis Whitcomb - Wisdom Intro | |
| A reaction: The interesting question is then whether the two are connected. One might be thoroughly 'sensible' about action, without counting as 'wise', which seems to require a broader view of what is being done. Whitcomb endorses Aristotle on this idea. |
| 12027 | There must be a plausible epistemological theory alongside any metaphysical theory [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: No metaphysical account which renders it impossible to give a plausible epistemological theory is to be countenanced. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 9.1) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to object to this principle, though we certainly don't want to go verificationist, and thus rule out speculations about metaphysics which are beyond any possible knowledge. Some have tried to prove that something must exist (e.g. Jacquette). |
| 1575 | For Aristotle logos is essentially the ability to talk rationally about questions of value [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle logos is the ability to speak rationally about, with the hope of attaining knowledge, questions of value. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.26 |
| 1589 | Aristotle is the supreme optimist about the ability of logos to explain nature [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle is the great theoretician who articulates a vision of a world in which natural and stable structures can be rationally discovered. His is the most optimistic and richest view of the possibilities of logos | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.95 |
| 8200 | Aristotelian definitions aim to give the essential properties of the thing defined [Aristotle, by Quine] |
| Full Idea: A real definition, according to the Aristotelian tradition, gives the essence of the kind of thing defined. Man is defined as a rational animal, and thus rationality and animality are of the essence of each of us. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Willard Quine - Vagaries of Definition p.51 | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 4385. Personally I prefer the Aristotelian approach, but we may have to say 'We cannot identify the essence of x, and so x cannot be defined'. Compare 'his mood was hard to define' with 'his mood was hostile'. |
| 4385 | Aristotelian definition involves first stating the genus, then the differentia of the thing [Aristotle, by Urmson] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, to give a definition one must first state the genus and then the differentia of the kind of thing to be defined. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by J.O. Urmson - Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean p.157 | |
| A reaction: Presumably a modern definition would just be a list of properties, but Aristotle seeks the substance. How does he define a genus? - by placing it in a further genus? |
| 12005 | The symbol 'ι' forms definite descriptions; (ιx)F(x) says 'the x which is such that F(x)' [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: We use the symbol 'ι' (Greek 'iota') to form definite descriptions, reading (ιx)F(x) as 'the x which is such that F(x)', or simply as 'the F'. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: Compare the lambda operator in modal logic, which picks out predicates from similar formulae. |
| 13282 | Aristotle relativises the notion of wholeness to different measures [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle proposes to relativise unity and plurality, so that a single object can be both one (indivisible) and many (divisible) simultaneously, without contradiction, relative to different measures. Wholeness has degrees, with the strength of the unity. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.12 | |
| A reaction: [see Koslicki's account of Aristotle for details] As always, the Aristotelian approach looks by far the most promising. Simplistic mechanical accounts of how parts make wholes aren't going to work. We must include the conventional and conceptual bit. |
| 4730 | For Aristotle, the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected a substance-accident structure of reality [Aristotle, by O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle apparently believed that the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected the substance-accident nature of reality. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: We need not assume that Aristotle is wrong. It is a chicken-and-egg. There is something obvious about subject-predicate language, if one assumes that unified objects are part of nature, and not just conventional. |
| 12010 | Is the meaning of 'and' given by its truth table, or by its introduction and elimination rules? [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: The typical semantic account of validity for propositional connectives like 'and' presupposes that meaning is given by truth-tables. On the natural deduction view, the meaning of 'and' is given by its introduction and elimination rules. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 4.4) |
| 12023 | Vagueness problems arise from applying sharp semantics to vague languages [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: It is very plausible that the sorites paradoxes arose from the application of a semantic apparatus appropriate only for sharp predicates to languages containing vague predicates (rather than from deficiency of meaning, or from incoherence). | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 7.3) | |
| A reaction: Sounds wrong. Of course, logic has been designed for sharp predicates, and natural languages are awash with vagueness. But the problems of vagueness bothered lawyers long before logicians like Russell began to worry about it. |
| 12017 | In all instances of identity, there must be some facts to ensure the identity [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: For each instance of identity or failure of identity, there must be facts in virtue of which that instance obtains. ..Enough has been said to lend this doctrine some plausibility. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: Penelope Mackie picks this out from Forbes as a key principle. It sounds to be in danger of circularity, unless the 'facts' can be cited without referring to, or implicitly making use of, identities - which seems unlikely. |
| 12024 | If we combined two clocks, it seems that two clocks may have become one clock. [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: If we imagine a possible world in which two clocks in a room make one clock from half the parts of each, the judgement 'these two actual clocks could have been a single clock' does not seem wholly false. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: You would, of course, have sufficient parts left over to make a second clock, so they look like a destroyed clock, so I don't think I find Forbes's intuition on this one very persuasive. |
| 13276 | The unmoved mover and the soul show Aristotelian form as the ultimate mereological atom [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's discussion of the unmoved mover and of the soul confirms the suspicion that form, when it is not thought of as the object represented in a definition, plays the role of the ultimate mereological atom within his system. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 6.6 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle is concerned with which things are 'divisible', and he cites these two examples as indivisible, but they may be too unusual to offer an actual theory of how Aristotle builds up wholes from atoms. He denies atoms in matter. |
| 13277 | The 'form' is the recipe for building wholes of a particular kind [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Thus in Aristotle we may think of an object's formal components as a sort of recipe for how to build wholes of that particular kind. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.5 | |
| A reaction: In the elusive business of pinning down what Aristotle means by the crucial idea of 'form', this analogy strikes me as being quite illuminating. It would fit DNA in living things, and the design of an artifact. |
| 11885 | Only individual essences will ground identities across worlds in other properties [Forbes,G, by Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Forbes argues that, unless we posit individual essences, we cannot guarantee that identities across possible worlds will be appropriately grounded in other properties. | |
| From: report of Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 2.4 | |
| A reaction: There is a confrontation between Wiggins, who says identity is primitive, and Forbes, who says identity must be grounded in other properties. I think I side with Forbes. |
| 12014 | An individual essence is a set of essential properties which only that object can have [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: An individual essence of an object x is a set of properties I which satisfies the following conditions: i. every property P in I is an essential property of x; ii. it is not possible that some object y distinct from x has every member of I. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: I am coming to the view that stable natural kinds (like electrons or gold) do not have individual essences, but complex kinds (like tigers or tables) do. The view is based on the idea that explanatory power is what individuates an essence. |
| 12015 | Non-trivial individual essence is properties other than de dicto, or universal, or relational [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: A non-trivial individual essence is properties other than a) those following from a de dicto truth, b) properties of existence and self-identity (or their cognates), c) properties derived from necessities in some other category. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: [I have compressed Forbes] Rather than adding all these qualificational clauses to our concept, we could just tighten up on the notion of a property, saying it is something which is causally efficacious, and hence explanatory. |
| 12013 | Essential properties depend on a category, and perhaps also on particular facts [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: The essential properties of a thing will typically depend upon what category of thing it is, and perhaps also on some more particular facts about the thing itself. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: I see no way of dispensing with the second requirement, in the cases of complex entities like animals. If all samples are the same, then of course we can define a sample's essence through its kind, but not if samples differ in any way. |
| 12012 | Essential properties are those without which an object could not exist [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: An essential property of an object x is a property without possessing which x could not exist. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: This is certainly open to question. See Joan Kung's account of Aristotle on essence. I am necessarily more than eight years old (now), and couldn't exist without that property, but is the property part of my essence? |
| 12022 | Same parts does not ensure same artefact, if those parts could constitute a different artefact [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: Sameness of parts is not sufficient for identity of artefacts at a world, since the very same parts may turn up at different times as the parts of artefacts with different designs and functions. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 7.2) | |
| A reaction: Thus the Ship of Theseus could be dismantled and turned into a barn (as happened with the 'Mayflower'). They could then be reconstituted as the ship, which would then have two beginnings (as Chris Hughes has pointed out). |
| 12025 | Artefacts have fuzzy essences [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: Artefacts can be ascribed fuzzy essences. ...We might say that it is essential to an artefact to have 'most' of its parts. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 7.6) | |
| A reaction: I think I prefer to accept the idea that essences are unstable things, in all cases. For all we know, electrons might subtly change their general character, or cease to be uniform, tomorrow. Essences explain, and what needs explaining changes. |
| 12020 | An individual might change their sex in a world, but couldn't have differed in sex at origin [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: In the time of a single world, the same individual can undergo a change of sex, but it is less clear that an individual of one sex could have been, from the outset, an individual of another. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 6.5) | |
| A reaction: I don't find this support for essentiality of origin very persuasive. I struggle with these ideas. Given my sex yesterday, then presumably I couldn't have had a different sex yesterday. Given that pigs can fly, pigs can fly. What am I missing? |
| 11888 | Identities must hold because of other facts, which must be instrinsic [Forbes,G, by Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Forbes has two principles of identity, which we can call the No Bare Identities Principle (identities hold in virtue of other facts), and the No Extrinsic Determination Principle (that only intrinsic facts of a thing establish identity). | |
| From: report of Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 127-8) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 2.7 | |
| A reaction: The job of the philosopher is to prise apart the real identities of things from the way in which we conceive of identities. I take these principles to apply to real identities, not conceptual identities. |
| 12003 | De re modal formulae, unlike de dicto, are sensitive to transworld identities [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: The difference between de re and de dicto formulae is a difference between formulae which are, and formulae which are not, sensitive to the identities of objects at various worlds. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 3.1) |
| 12028 | De re necessity is a form of conceptual necessity, just as de dicto necessity is [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: De re necessity does not differ from de dicto necessity in respect of how it arises: it is still a form of conceptual necessity. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 9.4) | |
| A reaction: [Forbes proceeds to argue for this claim] Forbes defends a form of essentialism, but takes the necessity to arise from a posteriori truths because of the a priori involvement of other concepts (rather as Kripke argues). |
| 12008 | Unlike places and times, we cannot separate possible worlds from what is true at them [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: There is no means by which we might distinguish a possible world from what is true at it. ...Whereas our ability to separate a place, or a time, from its occupier is crucial to realism about places and times, as is a distance relation. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: He is objecting to Lewis's modal realism. I'm not fully convinced. It depends whether we are discussing real ontology or conceptual space. In the latter I see no difference between times and possible worlds. In ontology, a 'time' is weird. |
| 12009 | The problem with possible worlds realism is epistemological; we can't know properties of possible objects [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: The main objection to realism about worlds is from epistemology. Knowledge of properties of objects requires experience of these objects, which must be within the range of our sensory faculties, but only concrete actual objects achieve that. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: This pinpoints my dislike of the whole possible worlds framework, ontologically speaking. I seem to be an actualist. I take possibilities to be inferences to the best explanation from the powers we know of in the actual world. We experience potentiality. |
| 12007 | Possible worlds are points of logical space, rather like other times than our own [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: Someone impressed by the parallel between tense and modal operators ...might suggest that just as we can speak of places and times forming their own manifolds or spaces, so we can say that worlds are the points of logical space. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: I particularly like the notion of worlds being "points of logical space", and am inclined to remove it from this context and embrace it as the correct way to understand possible worlds. We must understand logical or conceptual space. |
| 12011 | Transworld identity concerns the limits of possibility for ordinary things [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: An elucidation of transworld identity can be regarded as an elucidation of the boundaries of possibility for ordinary things. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: I presume that if we don't search for some such criterion, we just have to face the possibility that Aristotle could have been a poached egg in some possible world. To know the bounds of possibility, study the powers of actual objects. |
| 12016 | The problem of transworld identity can be solved by individual essences [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: The motivation for investigating individual essences should be obvious, since if every object has such an essence, the problem of elucidating transworld identity can be solved. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: It is important that, if necessary, the identities be 'individual', and not just generic, by sortal, or natural kind. We want to reason about (and explain) truths at the fine-grained level of the individual, not just at the broad level of generalisation. |
| 12004 | Counterpart theory is not good at handling the logic of identity [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: The outstanding technical objection to counterpart-theoretic semantics concerns its handling of the logic of identity. In quantified S5 (the orthodox semantics) a = b → □(a = b) is valid, but 'a' must not attach to two objects. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 3.5) |
| 12021 | Haecceitism attributes to each individual a primitive identity or thisness [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: Haecceitism attributes to each individual a primitive identity or thisness, as opposed to the sort of essentialism that gives non-trivial conditions sufficient for transworld identity. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 6.6) | |
| A reaction: 'Haecceitism' is the doctrine that things have primitive identity. A 'haecceity' is a postulated property which actually does the job. The key point of the view is that whatever it is is 'primitive', and not complex, or analysable. I don't believe it. |
| 12029 | We believe in thisnesses, because we reject bizarre possibilities as not being about that individual [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: The natural response to an unreasonable hypothesis of possibility for an object x, that in such a state of affairs it would not be x which satisfies the conditions, is evidence that we do possess concepts of thisness for individuals. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 9.4) | |
| A reaction: We may have a 'concept' of thisness, but we needn't be committed to the 'existence' of a thisness. There is a fairly universal intuition that cessation of existence of an entity when it starts to change can be a very vague matter. |
| 5991 | For Aristotle, knowledge is of causes, and is theoretical, practical or productive [Aristotle, by Code] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle thinks that in general we have knowledge or understanding when we grasp causes, and he distinguishes three fundamental types of knowledge - theoretical, practical and productive. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Alan D. Code - Aristotle | |
| A reaction: Productive knowledge we tend to label as 'knowing how'. The centrality of causes for knowledge would get Aristotle nowadays labelled as a 'naturalist'. It is hard to disagree with his three types, though they may overlap. |
| 11239 | The notion of a priori truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: The notion of a priori truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 11240. |
| 23312 | Aristotle is a rationalist, but reason is slowly acquired through perception and experience [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle is a rationalist …but reason for him is a disposition which we only acquire over time. Its acquisition is made possible primarily by perception and experience. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Rationalism p.173 | |
| A reaction: I would describe this process as the gradual acquisition of the skill of objectivity, which needs the right knowledge and concepts to evaluate new experiences. |
| 16111 | Aristotle wants to fit common intuitions, and therefore uses language as a guide [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: Since Aristotle generally prefers a metaphysical theory that accords with common intuitions, he frequently relies on facts about language to guide his metaphysical claims. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: I approve of his procedure. I take intuition to be largely rational justifications too complex for us to enunciate fully, and language embodies folk intuitions in its concepts (especially if the concepts occur in many languages). |
| 16971 | Plato says sciences are unified around Forms; Aristotle says they're unified around substance [Aristotle, by Moravcsik] |
| Full Idea: Plato's unity of science principle states that all - legitimate - sciences are ultimately about the Forms. Aristotle's principle states that all sciences must be, ultimately, about substances, or aspects of substances. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], 1) by Julius Moravcsik - Aristotle on Adequate Explanations 1 |
| 11243 | Aristotelian explanations are facts, while modern explanations depend on human conceptions [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle things which explain (the explanantia) are facts, which should not be associated with the modern view that says explanations are dependent on how we conceive and describe the world (where causes are independent of us). | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.1 | |
| A reaction: There must be some room in modern thought for the Aristotelian view, if some sort of robust scientific realism is being maintained against the highly linguistic view of philosophy found in the twentieth century. |
| 3320 | Aristotle's standard analysis of species and genus involves specifying things in terms of something more general [Aristotle, by Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: The standard Aristotelian doctrine of species and genus in the theory of anything whatever involves specifying what the thing is in terms of something more general. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.10 |
| 12000 | Aristotle regularly says that essential properties explain other significant properties [Aristotle, by Kung] |
| Full Idea: The view that essential properties are those in virtue of which other significant properties of the subjects under investigation can be explained is encountered repeatedly in Aristotle's work. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Joan Kung - Aristotle on Essence and Explanation IV | |
| A reaction: What does 'significant' mean here? I take it that the significant properties are the ones which explain the role, function and powers of the object. |
| 23300 | Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle, and also the Stoics, denied rationality to animals. …The Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and some more independent Aristotelians, did grant reason and intellect to animals. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Denial' | |
| A reaction: This is not the same as affirming or denying their consciousness. The debate depends on how rationality is conceived. |
| 11240 | The notion of analytic truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: The notion of analytic truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 11239. |
| 6559 | Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal [Aristotle, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: To the best of my knowledge (and somewhat to my surprise), Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal; however, he all but says it. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: When I read this I thought that this database would prove Fogelin wrong, but it actually supports him, as I can't find it in Aristotle either. Descartes refers to it in Med.Two. In Idea 5133 Aristotle does say that man is a 'social being'. But 22586! |
| 11150 | It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it. | |
| From: Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) | |
| A reaction: The epigraph on a David Chalmers website. A wonderful remark, and it should be on the wall of every beginners' philosophy class. However, while it is in the spirit of Aristotle, it appears to be a misattribution with no ancient provenance. |
| 3037 | Aristotle said the educated were superior to the uneducated as the living are to the dead [Aristotle, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated; "As much," he said, "as the living are to the dead." | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 05.1.11 |
| 8660 | There are potential infinities (never running out), but actual infinity is incoherent [Aristotle, by Friend] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle developed his own distinction between potential infinity (never running out) and actual infinity (there being a collection of an actual infinite number of things, such as places, times, objects). He decided that actual infinity was incoherent. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 1.3 | |
| A reaction: Friend argues, plausibly, that this won't do, since potential infinity doesn't make much sense if there is not an actual infinity of things to supply the demand. It seems to just illustrate how boggling and uncongenial infinity was to Aristotle. |
| 12058 | Aristotle's matter can become any other kind of matter [Aristotle, by Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's conception of matter permits any kind of matter to become any other kind of matter. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Wiggins - Substance 4.11.2 | |
| A reaction: This is obviously crucial background information when we read Aristotle on matter. Our 92+ elements, and fixed fundamental particles, gives a quite different picture. Aristotle would discuss form and matter quite differently now. |
| 14014 | Space alone, and time alone, will fade away, and only their union has an independent reality [Minkowski] |
| Full Idea: Henceforth, space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality. | |
| From: Hermann Minkowski (Space and Time [1908], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Notice the qualification that it is a 'kind of' union. Deep confusion arises from exaggerating the analogy between space and time. Craig Bourne remarks (2006:157) that this shows independence of measurement, not of reality |
| 22729 | The concepts of gods arose from observing the soul, and the cosmos [Aristotle, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle said that the conception of gods arose among mankind from two originating causes, namely from events which concern the soul and from celestial phenomena. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], Frag 10) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.20 | |
| A reaction: The cosmos suggests order, and possible creation. What do events of the soul suggest? It doesn't seem to be its non-physical nature, because Aristotle is more of a functionalist. Puzzling. (It says later that gods are like the soul). |